HKBH completed creation by saying DAI (DIE?). See RSR Hirsch B'reisheet 2:1. Thus creative activity ceased.
It seems that during the 6 Days of Creation, a certain Creative Force Reined, until S-D-Y [the Almighty] terminated it.
Yet it would appear that Creativity and even Evolution continues! So What precisely has ceased?
Here is a possible case of terminated creativity. AFAIK no human has personally witnessed a specie morph into a more evolved specie. No one sees mice becoming rabbits or deer. [Microbes might be an exception.] Yet within species, adaptation has been witnessed...
My big "kasha" on Darwin has long been the following: Where did Darwin dig up adaptation as applicable with regard to evolving from one specie to another? This is AFAIK unknown!
Now - with RSR Hirsch's assistance - I can approach a reconciliation.
When Our CREATOR made the world during the 6 days, such evolution from one specie to the next may have indeed reined upon the earth. [Or perhaps something virtually its equivalent.] As such, when HKBH created specie X, HE may have done so in such a way as to evolve X into species Y and Z etc.! And this pattern is coded into the Original Creation Process's "DNA". Conceivably, Darwin may have detected a legacy of that process or its equivalent.
HOWEVER, once S-D-Y said "DIE", this aspect of the creative process was terminated and what had already been made - and was also making - became fixed, locked. No new species would ever emerge.
Nevertheless, A Remnant, a Legacy of the Original Creativity and Adaption remains, but the species have been fixed and limited - as perhaps other aspects of Creation.
And so since Vayachulu, the Original Creative process was terminated, and but a shadow of it remains
KT
RRW
6 comments:
There are no new species after Hashem said "די"?
What's this H1N1 thing?
Rabbi Wolpe, I'd have to challenge your analysis, although it might still leave your larger point applicable.
The reason that no one has ever seen one species evolve into another is because of time - the time it takes for such an evolution to occur is longer than the total history of human civilization. But, there IS ample evidence, both in the fossil record and elsewhere, that it has happened (you can check out http://www.newsweek.com/id/216140, if you can get past Dawkins' obnoxious stridency).
But, that doesn't have to change your larger point. At the earliest times of creation, TKBH set the wheels in motion, and performed a high act of Creation, so to speak. Since then, all that's been happening is the unfolding of that creation. God created the seed, we are part of the flowering. But, it doesn't matter how small or great that flowering is - it could be a small flowering (a blade of grass, intra-species evolution) or a great one (an oak tree, inter-species evolution). It's all part of the same, original Creation, which can never be replicated.
Jason: The reason that no one has ever seen one species evolve into another is because of time - the time it takes for such an evolution to occur is longer than the total history of human civilization."
This is illogical
in a random universe species would be in all stages of transition. Transitional; species would be all over the place
As far as h1n1 goes I believe my post said specifically "[Microbes might be an exception.]"
if you will there is no visual evidence of cross-specie evolution
Good Shabbos
RRW
Rabbi Wolpe - who says that what you see isn't a transitional form? We only think of them as "final" because that's what we're used to seeing. But, that's just a comment about our perspective, not about the nature of reality.
Actually, according to the Theory of Evolution, every form is always transitional. Nothing stays the same.
As this is a question that actually has always bothered me about evolution, and I believe that it is to what Rabbi Wolpoe is referring, the problem is: why we do not see the co-existence of different stages of evolution at the same time? IOW shouldn't different stages on the evolutionary spectrum co-exist at the same time? Why, as such, is a species of the missing link not existent at this time in history as well?
Of course, this question may simply reflect a lack of knowledge in me of the details of the evolutionary theory. It is clear, though, that evolution is not solely continuous and different stages along the spectrum do continue to exist even as some members of a species may evolve into higher stages. It just seems that the movements between stages is not as linear and continuous as the theory would seem to imply, especially given the time horizons and the immense amount of time needed for species to evolve. The time factor, for me, actually strengthens this question.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
Rabbi Hecht - It's hard for me to be clear in a short space, especially since I'm not an expert (again, the Dawkins piece is useful for this, despite its annoying attitude). But, let me try by asking a question: "what, specifically, do you expect to see that you don't? What should a 'transitional species' look like?" Every single species that is alive today is, from one perspective, a 'transitional species.' None (few?) of them existed, as they are today, a few million years ago. None (few?) will exist, as they are today, in a few million years.
A common mistake in evolutionary criticism is to think that one species on earth always developed from another current species. In truth, humans did not descend from apes, rather, we both descended from a common ancestors, which was neither human nor ape. The "missing link," so to speak, went extinct.
One day, in theory, the environment will change so that chimps (for example) are no longer viable, but something else, chimp-like, but not a chimp, will be. In millions of years, we will have a neo-chimp, and a fossil record of chimps. Chimps were the "missing link" between proto-chimps and neo-chimps.
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